Mental health changes over time, even more so than physical health. It is deeply influenced by our relationships with our friends, family, colleagues, and our general environment — making each person’s concerns unique. According to the B.C. Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, suicide has become the ninth leading cause of death in Canada, with British Columbia holding the highest rate of hospitalization due to mental illness and substance use. Research suggests that the social stigma that surrounds mental health prevents 40 percent of people from seeking proper care.

Like a Marvel character’s super power, summer intern Yutian Zhang has been learning how to see through tissue.

However, unlike a comic-book hero, Yutian is working with a research team to develop a laser-based optical system and a special camera to see through tissue. The desired result would be improved medical technology for tissue imaging.

Like a Marvel character’s super power, summer intern Yutian Zhang has been learning how to see through tissue.

However, unlike a comic-book hero, Yutian is working with a research team to develop a laser-based optical system and a special camera to see through tissue. The desired result would be improved medical technology for tissue imaging.

Un laboratoire de recherche à Edmonton tire parti du talent international afin d’aider à faire passer leurs solutions de haute technologie pour les sportifs du laboratoire au terrain de football. 

An Edmonton research lab is tapping into some international talent to help bring their high-tech solutions for athletes out of the lab and onto the football field. 

Shengjie Xiu, a 20-year-old undergraduate student from China, spent his summer working in professor Hossein Rouhani’s neuromuscular control and biomechanics laboratory at the University of Alberta. There, he’s been tasked with helping to develop a custom software application designed to pair to a set of augmented-reality (AR) goggles and biofeedback sensors that help athletes assess their performance.

An Edmonton research lab is tapping into some international talent to help bring their high-tech solutions for athletes out of the lab and onto the football field. 

Shengjie Xiu, a 20-year-old undergraduate student from China, spent his summer working in professor Hossein Rouhani’s neuromuscular control and biomechanics laboratory at the University of Alberta. There, he’s been tasked with helping to develop a custom software application designed to pair to a set of augmented-reality (AR) goggles and biofeedback sensors that help athletes assess their performance.

Depression is one of the most prevailing health conditions of the 21st century, affecting over 300 million people worldwide. The illness does not discriminate. It is a leading cause of workplace disability and represents a large financial burden for many families. Consequently, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, under the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases’ mental illness funding initiative have co-funded a five-year implementation project to optimize clinical care.

The new tool uses a deep-learning computer vision system and motion-classification algorithms to capture events such as falls in real time, alert caregivers and give health-care professionals the information they need for immediate triage.

The system—developed in part by the Multimedia Research Centre led by Irene Cheng in the Department of Computing Science—transfers real-time video to an autonomous computer vision lockbox. If an event is detected, the system alerts a specified caregiver and provides a redacted video of the event.